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I like e-readers now

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Re: I like e-readers now

#191

Post by morsch »

stinkytaco wrote: post #173
morsch wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, for me it's just a laziness issue. ;) I just enjoy not having to hold the device. I can just rest my arms wherever they naturally would rest. Or put them under the sheets when the bedroom is cold. Etc.

Fair enough. I can see this being useful for someone with Parkinson's or even someone who just has trouble regularly lifting their arm (they can lift a book and place it, but flipping the pages would just tire their arm out). I now wish there was a straightforward remote control you could buy with the Kindle.

Exactly. Like I said, I'm astonished that this hasn't been a thing you can buy for a long time. The new Kindles come with a USB-C connector, maybe that changes things.

Re: I like e-readers now

#192

Post by _moof »

I long preferred "real" books, despite having an e-reader for over ten years, but the e-reader has a killer feature: the backlight. Having a backlight means I can turn the light off on my nightstand, and read at night without keeping people up. (Yes, I know they make reading lights. No, I haven't tried one. They look like they're a pain.)

I also realized after looking over my (physical) bookshelves that I don't actually care about most of the books on there. This is after multiple rounds of clearing out the shelves and making trips to the secondhand bookstore, free library, etc., so it's not a matter of cruft. If I'm honest with myself, most books are "read once and discard," though there is a small collection that it feels distasteful not to keep copies of. Certain classics, or books with particular personal significance, for instance.

The cost of ebooks is an issue, as is the DRM. I haven't experimented with digital lending from libraries so I don't know if that's a solution to the cost problem, but it could be. DRM is... well, a perennial problem for digital media. And it does feel like something is missing in a world without secondhand stores and free libraries.

(Edit: It is in fact a frontlight, not a backlight. Duh.)

Re: I like e-readers now

#194

Post by asdff »

_moof wrote: post #192

I long preferred "real" books, despite having an e-reader for over ten years, but the e-reader has a killer feature: the backlight. Having a backlight means I can turn the light off on my nightstand, and read at night without keeping people up. (Yes, I know they make reading lights. No, I haven't tried one. They look like they're a pain.) I also realized after looking over my (physical) bookshelves that I don't actua…

I've never been able to do a backlit screen in an otherwise unlit room. I get eye strain so fast. The litte reader lites are great. $5 and clips to your book or headboard or nitestand or wherever you want, and the light is pretty focused on your book.

Re: I like e-readers now

#195

Post by jacurtis »

vmurthy wrote: post #2

>I’m still not into the prospect of purchasing books on the e-reader – it’s something I’ll probably avoid Agree with most of what the author (including a preference for physical books) says but this. I must have spent close to USD 2k on various e-books (I use Amazon because of legacy reasons .. availability of e-readers in India around 2013 etc ) and the joy these purchases have given me can't compare with what I mig…

My favorite part about ebooks, and specifically Kindle/Amazon is that you can flip through your highlights. I will highlight parts of a book I really enjoyed and sometimes write personal notes about them as I read.

I enjoy going back and spending 15-30 minutes going through my highlights and notes on books I previously read and re-reading sections around highlights. It brings back a surprising amount of memories and emotions from the book that get lost over time. Now Amazon lets you read these with read.amazon.com and offers some export features. The export features are still not perfect, but are better than they were.

I also like the sheer number of books I can keep on my Kindle and they don't take up physical space in my home. I don't want hundreds of books stacked up that i read once. So instead I find that I read on Kindle first. Then if I REALLY enjoy the book, I will purchase a physical copy for my bookshelf. So my bookshelf becomes a physical embodiment of my curated favorites. I also have an obsession with old books, so I enjoy hunting down cool copies at used bookstores to get the right one for my bookshelf.

Here is the tool I use to get highlights and notes off my Kindle and onto Notion, which allows multi-device syncing and web-access to my notes and private storage.

https://github.com/paperboi/kindle2notion

Re: I like e-readers now

#196

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

wintermutestwin wrote: post #185
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the use-case, exactly? The only real-life experience I have with wanting to turn ebook pages remotely is during the winter, when my hands are cold and even touchscreen-compatible gloves/mittens don't work well with the touchscreen sensor. But if I ever truly got that desperate, there are several lines of Kobo and Kindle devices with physical touch buttons that would solve the problem.

Personally, I find that the tap or swipe to turn pages functionality is insanely difficult when I have highlighted the whole page of text. I miss the world of tactile buttons for many things - get off my lawn!

Then, again, the "premium" versions of the e-reader lines like the Kindle Oasis or the Kobo Forma should scratch that itch for you, right?

https://us.kobobooks.com/products/kobo-forma?utm_source=Kobo...

The biggest downside, of course, being that they're each about double the price of the Kindle Paperwhite or Kobo Clara HD models, respectively. Both of those devices are perfectly serviceable to me, so I'm not yet so old or rich that I'll pay an extra $100 for physical buttons.

Re: I like e-readers now

#197

Post by throwaway1239Mx »

_moof wrote: post #192

I long preferred "real" books, despite having an e-reader for over ten years, but the e-reader has a killer feature: the backlight. Having a backlight means I can turn the light off on my nightstand, and read at night without keeping people up. (Yes, I know they make reading lights. No, I haven't tried one. They look like they're a pain.) I also realized after looking over my (physical) bookshelves that I don't actua…

I've tried reading lights, but the backlight on my kindle is much better for preserving night vision. I think it may also make less of an impact on ease of falling asleep... just to add my $0.02!

Re: I like e-readers now

#198

Post by dont__panic »

asdff wrote: post #194
_moof wrote: post #192

I long preferred "real" books, despite having an e-reader for over ten years, but the e-reader has a killer feature: the backlight. Having a backlight means I can turn the light off on my nightstand, and read at night without keeping people up. (Yes, I know they make reading lights. No, I haven't tried one. They look like they're a pain.) I also realized after looking over my (physical) bookshelves that I don't actua…

I've never been able to do a backlit screen in an otherwise unlit room. I get eye strain so fast. The litte reader lites are great. $5 and clips to your book or headboard or nitestand or wherever you want, and the light is pretty focused on your book.

Technically ereader screens are frontlit: the glass in front of the e-ink display refracts light across the display evenly. So instead of looking right at a light source, you're viewing refracted light scattered across the entire display.

I also get a headache from backlit screens. Frontlit e-ink is much better.

Re: I like e-readers now

#199

Post by asdff »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #93
AshamedCaptain wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently these days you can release a half-baked product and get away with it by saying "the obvious lack of features is so that you can have a focused, distraction-free experience!" or something similar.

My counter would be that it was traditionally never the paperback book's job to help you navigate the bookstore. But yes, I'll grant that the Kobo's experimental browser (which I think is the component that powers all the pieces I mentioned above that are slow/cumbersome) is noticeably less responsive than the Kindle's. They could probably do some additional tweaking under-the-hood to make it more responsive. Beyond…

We are over ten years out from the ipad 1. it shouldn't be very costly to put in some hardware powerful enough that it at least makes it so typing text doesn't have input lag. That wouldn't even take much more beef than a $40 raspberry pi. This is like a TV manufacturer evil business genius tier move. Why spend $4 on a decent wholesale board when you can spend $0.04 instead on a terrible board and the consumers will buy it anyway?

Re: I like e-readers now

#200

Post by codebook »

visarga wrote: post #118

I like e-writers even more, I have a Remarkable 2. It's a great writing tool.

I'd had Ratta Supernote A5x for an e-writer. Really loved it. Bigger storage than reMarkable 2, better software and cloud integration than reMarkable 2. The pencil response time is somewhat slower than reMarkable 2 though.

I'd used it extensively. And lost. I instantly changed my Ratta cloud password. But any taker can see my notes in the device. No way to block the access remotely. The only protection from theft is to set the 6 digit PIN.

Now, I am hesitant to buy another Supernote A5x. Maybe I just admit the device can be lost, so that I just copy old notes and delete from the device regularly.

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